Thursday, January 18, 2007

Excuse me. May I carve up your country?

Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) and Leslie Gelb of the Council on Foreign Relations are proposing a solution for Iraq that involves dividing the country into Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish regions, leaving a small central government, leaving some U.S. troops, and increasing reconstruction aid.

I see a couple of problems with this. First, it's not nice for America to be talking about cutting up other people's countries. It's proposals like this that give the United States a reputation of arrogance in the world. If the proposal is a good one, it needs to come from Baghdad, not Washington.

Biden and Gelb have a list of people they say have praised the plan, but I had to scroll down pretty far before finally finding an Iraqi on the list. Iraqi national security adviser Muwaffaq al-Rubaie is quoted as having said last May: "I think the Biden idea is a good idea, with some modifications." I don't see anyone else from Iraq jumping on board the proposal, and I don't see al-Rubaie bringing up the subject more recently.

A second problem is that it's not clear how dividing the country will lead to the withdrawal of U.S. troops. I suppose the idea is that when everyone has their own land and a share of the oil revenue, they will be happy and content and order will be restored.

People are strange, though. They are rarely content with what they are given. At least not for very long. They usually find a reason to try and take more. I think we may end up paying for a few "separation barriers" if we go with this plan.

In any event, the proposal should be a non-starter as long as it is originating in Washington. If Sen. Biden wants to pursue this, he needs to withdraw his proposal and then talk to the Iraqis about making their own proposal along these lines.

4 comments:

greggor said...

Would you also conclude that our founding fathers carved up the United States into 13 pieces?

barbarian poet said...

It was western arrogance that created the nation of Iraq in the first place, just like Pakistan and Israel...all places that never were decided by men in London and Washington...how bout we just get the fookn hell out of other peoples countries and fix our own.

Timothy Elder said...

My responses to greggor above:

With regard to the U.S., I think it was created using a very different model. Instead of carving up a country, 13 fairly independent entities that each had its own constitution, flag and currency were brought together to form a union.

Of course, each of those 13 were created by chasing out the people who were already living there already, but that's another issue.

Timothy Elder said...

My response to barbarian poet above:

You're right in pointing out that the world is still dealing with the consequences of decisions and actions taken at the end of WWI and WWII. But I disagree with your implication that the solution is to retreat from the world.

Like it or not the United States is the world's leading country. Abdicating the responsibilities of leadership will not change this. This will be true at least as long as the U.S. has the world's largest economy and most powerful military.

The proper response for us in the current situation is to figure out how to exercise that leadership more responsibily and in a way that takes the world in a more desirable direction. By that I mean in the direction of a more sustainable global community.

Fundamentally, I think that the lessons of Iraq for the U.S. have to do with the misuse of military power.

If we draw the lesson that barbarian poet suggests, that is that the countries of the "West" should simply disassociate themselves from the rest of the world, I think that would lead to even greater tragedy. The world is moving quickly in the direction of greater interdependence. This trend cannot be reversed.